Peters: Saldaña accepted $39K in gifts, trips

Former assemblywoman calls charges a campaign stunt

Congressional candidate Scott Peters blasted his chief Democratic opponent, Lori Saldaña, on Friday for accepting gifts and travel from special interest groups while serving in the California Legislature.

Saldaña said the charges amounted to a campaign stunt.

Peters is calling on the former assemblywoman to release expense reports, receipts, itineraries, agendas, correspondence and other materials relating to the more than $39,000 in gifts and trips to Vietnam, China, Argentina and Chile she accepted from 2005 to 2009.

Peters and Saldaña are locked in a close contest to challenge Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, who most believe will finish in the top two in June. Saldaña has criticized Peters on several occasions, both verbally and through press releases. This is Peters' first substantial attack on her.

Saldaña’s campaign said the trips were public record and dismissed the challenge as a smear attack by a candidate behind in the polls and refusing to make public his tax returns. Peters has released a 16-page document that discloses his family’s property, investments and sources of income. He also supports raising taxes so the wealthy pay their “fair share.”

Peters countered that the focus on his taxes was a pathetic attempt to distract from her “pay-to-play” record in the Legislature.

According to records released by his campaign, Saldaña reported receiving $22,058 in travel, including a 2006 trip to South America funded by the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit made up of oil companies, utilities and environmental groups. In highlighting the $12,500 trip, Peters noted overnight stays at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a five-star Ritz-Carlton in Santiago, Chile.

“While staying at the spectacular Alvear Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires, she even had her own personal butler to attend to her,” his campaign said. The foundation counted among its donors Chevron, Pacific Gas and Electric, AT&T and Sempra Energy – all of whom sought and received Saldaña’s support on legislation.

“Lori Saldaña accepted luxurious junkets funded by big corporations who had legislation before her that affected their bottom line. She accepted the trips and the corporations received the support from her they were seeking,” Peters’ campaign manager Robert Dempsey said.

“If Lori Saldaña is for transparency as she claims, she should release all documentation related to these expenses and explain to the voters how this isn’t a blatant conflict of interest.”

Dempsey said taxpayers deserve to know where she went, who went with her, who paid her way and what they received in return for the generosity.

Larry Remer, Saldaña’s campaign consultant, stressed that no taxpayer money was used by Saldaña and that the trade missions were meant to help grow the state’s economy.

Remer said everything cited by Peters has been public for years, “yet he doesn’t believe in applying transparency to himself.”

The Vietnam-China trip was sponsored by the state Senate’s international relations program. The Chile-Brazil-Argentina trip also included a visit to a swine farm to examine the latest technology for creating methane gas as an alternative fuel, Remer said.

The trip came shortly after the passage of Assembly Bill 32, legislation co-authored by Saldaña to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Government watchdogs for years have complained that trips, tickets and dinners allow special interests to get access to lawmakers to help plead their case on critical bills. They argue that ordinary citizens don’t enjoy the same privilege.

Peters noted that Saldaña supported AT&T-backed legislation in 2006 opposed by the city of San Diego that allowed telephone companies to offer cable television services without entering into franchise agreements with municipalities.

She said Assembly Bill 2987 was designed to insure low-income residents have access to broadband Internet and cable television and to prevent cable companies from sharing records of users’ viewing habits. It also was supported by the African-American Business Council, California Consumers Association, and California Labor Federation and passed 77-0.

In 2009, she voted for an unsuccessful bill pushed by PG&E, Sempra Energy and Southern California Edison that would have eliminated rate freezes for residential electric-utility customers.

Assembly Bill 413, which passed 68-6 but was defeated in the Senate, also would have required electric utilities to target energy efficiency and solar programs towards multi-family units. It was supported by the Utility Reform Network, UCAN, the Western Center for Law and Poverty and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.